Lifelong Exercise and Coronary Atherosclerosis

11 May 2017

Vincent Aengevaeren and Thijs Eijsvogels, from the
Integrative Physiology group, published a study in the high impact
journal Circulation. They assessed the association
between lifelong exercise volumes and indicators of coronary
atherosclerosis. For this purpose, CT-scans were performed in
nearly 300 athletes. Surprisingly, the most active athletes more
often had coronary atherosclerosis compared to their less active
peers. Nevertheless, the most active group had a more benign
composition of plaques, with fewer mixed plaques and more often
only calcified plaques. These observations may explain the
increased longevity typical of endurance athletes despite the
presence of more coronary atherosclerosis in the most active
participants.